The Museum Collection: Schools
Bradford’s Free Grammar School, not as grand as it now sounds, was set up in the Saxon Church 300 years ago in 1712 and lasted until 1903. In the meantime, many private schools came and went and the Nonconformists set up the British Schools in Bradford and the Anglicans set up their own National Schools in town and villages. Secondary schools, Trinity and Fitzmaurice, came in 1896 and 1897 and were joined up together as St Laurence School in 1980.
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A group photograph of the boys of the Free Grammar School -only boys went to the school- taken in the 1890s. Their teacher, Frederick William Cowlishaw is standing at the top. The photograph was probably taken at the back of the Church Hall, where the school was located from the 1870s to 1903.
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The Pinckney Cup was presented to the County Technical School by Captain Erlysman Charles Pinckney JP in 1927. The school was started in Frome Road, before moving to a new building in Junction Road in 1897. It was later named Fitzmaurice Grammar School after Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, its main benefactor and closed when it was amalgamated with St Laurence School in 1980. The cup was awarded for boys’ athletics at the school’s annual sports day. It is one of several trophies from the school that are now in the Museum.
Holt National School token. These tokens were given to each child who had attended on each day and a reward was given to those who had a complete set. This example is made of aluminium.
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This silver-plated bowl was presented to Florence Charlotte Windo in 1905 in thanks for her eight years of teaching at Bradford Parochial (National) School. She started teaching as a pupil-teacher at Westwood-with-Iford School in 1896 for £10 per year. She married Rowland Uncles, of the Market Street shoe shop.
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A programme for the Undenominational School Fête in September 1924. The event was to help generate an emergency fund for the school, which was in danger of closing due to failing to renew its lease on its building in Masons Lane. Wiltshire County had agreed to opening a County Junior School that was separate from the church in Bradford, but it had not happened in time. The County school eventually opened in Trowbridge Road in 1928; it is now called Fitzmaurice School.
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